feeling overwhelmed by all the changes!

[iwannago!!]

Hi all!

We have been to the world several times, the last being when the middle child was just a baby, now she is 4 and has an 'almost 3' year old brother. I have never been so unprepared for a disney trip ever.. and here I am without a single thought other than to come here and beg for your well thought out advice. HELP!

Who: Mom & Dad, 12yrDD, 4yrDD, 2.5yrDS
What: The World of course!
When: Monday, March 26th - we have a 9pm flight getting in at 12:30am Tuesday. We then will check in at the Vistana until Sunday, April 1st then we check into the Dolphin. We depart early on Wednesday, April 4th. This will give us 8 entire days. We want to do the parks 4-5 days, the water parks 1-2 days, and 1-2 resort days to relax and recharge a bit.
How: HELP - I need help!!! and lots of it!!!

Monday 3/26: fly at night - check into Vistana around 1am - sleep
Tuesday 3/27: sleep in, maybe a resort day or a Boardwalk/Downtown Disney night
Wednesday 3/28:
Thursday 3/29:
Friday 3/30
Saturday 3/31:
Sunday 4/1: check out of Vistana and into Dolphin
Monday 4/2
Tuesday 4/3:
Wednesday 4/4: a painful 6am flight home to Chicago. ( I JUST booked our flights the other day - they were cheap if we flew at obnoxious times and dates.. so that is what we took!)

ANY advice or thoughts that you can send my way would be appreciated!

thanks!

 

[karibritt01]

Are you doing base or hopper tickets? If base, go ahead and decide which park for which day, choose restaurants, and make ADR. If hopper, then you can just pick restaurants and make ADR, and you can play the park schedule by ear each day. Easter is 4/8, so you may have a large crowd there that week... definitely get a dining plan together ASAP. I would make 4/1 a resort day. By the time you check out of Vistana (w/ packing and the hassle) and check into Dolphin (w/ unpacking and getting settled) you are going to miss a good chunk of your park time. If you plan this day to relax at the resort, you will be able to slow down, and not feel so rushed to get everything done. Maybe get an ADR for Rainforest Cafe in DTD that night. 3/27 I would probably do the Boardwalk, as the kids are going to want to DO something their first day there, or maybe a character meal at a resort (Chef Mickey comes to mind.) For 4/3, I would plan the water park. Hit that in the daytime, wear the kids out, go for an early dinner and call it a night. Get packed and ready to go home after the kids go to bed. I feel for you with that 6AM flight after 8 days in WDW...

 

[iwannago!!]

We have the worst flight times on the worst days - but I got all 5 of us free flights with my 'thank you points', so we are going to deal. The alternative was driving, we figure that this beats driving. We are actually supposed to check into Vistana on Sunday, but won't arrive until the middle of the night Monday night/Tuesday morning, so we are losing a 2 days stay - but what can ya do?

We have old PHP passes from previous trips. I still don't know what to do with these, they are all partially used and I can't figure out if I can or cannot use them to upgrade to the new passes. So, for now, we can hop and we can get water parks for free until I figure out if there is any reason to do anything else with them.

We do plan to do WDW while we stay at Vistana, but not in a 'commando' kinda way. We thought a MK day would be a must, maybe a MGM day/afternoon - that is oldest DD's favorite park.

I did make some PS's yesterday (don't even know if you still call them PS's, but here they are):
3/29 8am MGM H&V for some character breakfast
3/30 2:00 lunch in Cindy's castle that I had to prepay $150 on my credit card! whoa!
4/1 9am Epcot Norway - Princess breakfast?
4/2 11am Lunch at the Garden Grill

I know that I will need to change/cancel some of this, I just wanted to grab a few things so that I could get the little ones into see some characters. My oldest DD always loved this part of our trips when she was little.

Thanks for helping me - so much has changed since we were there last, and I haven't done the toddler trip ever!

 

[karibritt01]

H&V has Little Einsteins and JoJo and Goliath. I would consider canceling either the Norway breakfast or the Cindy lunch, as they will be mostly the same princesses. If I had to choose, I would keep Cindy, just because eating in the castle is so special. Maybe replace the princess breakfast with 1900 Park Fare (Mary Poppins and Alice), Chef Mickey (classic characters) or AK Breakfastasaurus (classic characters.) Your DS will like those better than princesses, and your DD will still love it.

I have stayed at Vistana before - 9 yrs ago though - and it was beautiful. My only thought is you may want to do 2 days Epcot/MK since it is so easy to hop between the 2, and since the bulk of your days are at Vistana. The other thing is if you are doing the rest of your meals CS or at Vistana, then everything looks good. If you are going to eat TS, go ahead and plan the rest of your meals. I heard so many people turned away from TS restaurants because they were filled for the evening... at 5 o'clock! One last thought - when you do your MGM afternoon - plan to be there for the parade. My kids (8 & 3 last year) loved that one the most.

Meant to tell you that allearsnet.com is wonderful when planning meals, because they have all the menus listed. My kids are picky, and DH is worse, so that made it easy for me to satisfy everyone. Also, I would maybe call guest services at WDW to ask about your tickets, and how to upgrade and add on to them.

 

[iwannago!!]

what does CS and TS mean? LOL, I havent' a clue!

Counter Service? - if CS means that, then yes I was planning on quicker meals at counter type places where the little ones can share a meal and I can find something in the shape of a hot dog or nugget.

 

[iwannago!!]

also - there used to be a site where it told you which parks were Early Entry days for onsite guests.. so you knew which parks to avoid if you were staying off-site. Do you know where I can find this? I need to remember which days were busy at which parks so we can do the opposite.

thanks agian!

 

[karibritt01]

I got this from www.disneyworld.com. You can get park hours, ride restrictions, etc from there. You can click on My Vacation to plan an itenerary and order free customized maps of the parks.

CS= counter service
TS= table service
ADR - basically the same thing as PS

March 2007
Morning Extra Magic Hours
Magic Kingdom® Park - March 1, 8, 15, 22, 29
Epcot® - March 6, 13, 20, 27
Disney-MGM Studios - March 3, 10, 17, 24, 31
Disney's Animal Kingdom® Theme Park - March 5, 12, 19, 26


Evening Extra Magic Hours
Magic Kingdom® Park - March 4, 11, 18, 25
Epcot® - March 2, 9, 16, 23, 30
Disney-MGM Studios - March 5, 12, 19, 26
Disney's Animal Kingdom® Theme Park - March 7, 14, 21, 28


April 2007
Morning Extra Magic Hours
Magic Kingdom® Park - April 3, 5, 10, 12, 19, 26
Epcot® - April 1, 8, 17, 24
Disney-MGM Studios - April 2, 6, 9, 13, 21, 28
Disney's Animal Kingdom® Theme Park - April 4, 7, 11, 14, 16, 23, 30


Evening Extra Magic Hours
Magic Kingdom® Park - April 1, 6, 8, 13, 15, 22, 29
Epcot® - April 3, 5, 10, 12, 20, 27
Disney-MGM Studios - April 4, 11, 16, 23, 30
Disney's Animal Kingdom® Theme Park - April 2, 9, 18, 25

 

[iwannago!!]

you rock! Thanks, I didn't know that this was on thier site, I thought it was top secret info that only the veterans were able to get thier hands on!

I will get myself organized - thanks for all your help!